


Love Me, I Beg (King Hitori AU)

by Nhitori



Category: Hatoful Kareshi | Hatoful Boyfriend
Genre: King Hitori AU, M/M, i'm back on my bullshit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-09 08:04:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16445999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nhitori/pseuds/Nhitori
Summary: The King thinks that.Nobody has ever ever ever ever ever.Wanted him.Needed him.Or loved him.





	Love Me, I Beg (King Hitori AU)

**Author's Note:**

> Some friends on tumblr started drawing my au so I though it's high time I actually wrote said au YEAH

Nageki was dead.

That was how it started, after all. Nageki was dead. Three words. Just three. Everything was three words.

I love you.

Let’s die together.

Nageki was dead.

Every single little thing could be boiled down to three. How about this?

Hitori wasn’t happy.

Hitori wasn’t happy.

That didn’t mean much on its own, because strictly speaking, Hitori was not a happy person. He didn’t experience much in the way of joy, but he never let that get him down. He was functional. He might not have been happy, but he wasn’t depressed. The moments which were good really were. He had his shit together, he did.

As much as he could, as much as somebody like him could.

Hitori had been orphaned at a very young age, and despite being a paragon, a kind and helpful young man that anybody would want their child to be like, somehow, they never wanted their child to be that much like him. Never wanted their child to be him, but that wasn’t the problem. Hitori never minded being unwanted. The thing was, he was wanted around the orphanage plenty. He helped out, in fact, he practically became one of the caretakers as soon as he was old enough to take on that much responsibility. And as he got older, he understood why he was unwanted. Almost nobody was wanted, at Heartful House. Wonderful children.

But, it was the tail end of a war. That was the explanation he came to understand. There was a war, and these were wartime orphans, and who would adopt in a time like this? Hitori came to understand that and he made them into a family and wasn’t it just fine?

Of course it was, until it wasn’t.

In the final year of the war. The final year. It was practically done, but civilian casualties would continue until the last moment. And it came knocking. Hitori and Nageki were the only survivors.

Nageki was dead.

Nageki was dead now, and Hitori saw it with his own two eyes.

He should have died there too, he thought. There was no reason for him not to let the flames take him, or to succumb to smoke inhalation, or any way at all to die. Somehow, his legs carried him away. Maybe it was something Nageki said. What could Nageki have said? He didn’t remember. Couldn’t remember.

Kazuaki often said that he wanted to die.

Sometimes it wasn’t a serious statement and sometimes it was but throughout, the sentiment persisted. Hitori was a reason for him to live, a reason to wake up in the morning. Hitori didn’t think that he ought to be anybody’s reason to live, but he didn’t argue when it was keeping Kazuaki there with him. Even if Nageki and Kazuaki had a natural dislike for each other, the sort that came with the idea of ‘this guy is definitely screwing my brother’ and ‘this kid totally knows I’m screwing his brother’, Hitori had them both. They were his reasons to keep going.

Nageki was dead.

Hitori had a bag in his hand. A nondescript paper bag. In it, there were five more bags. The benefit of the city. After Nageki went to school, he’d moved in with Kazuaki. It was closer to the school. The apartment wasn’t as lonely as the house. In the city, Hitori could visit five pharmacies. In the city, Hitori could purchase an assortment that would raise red flags at any single store.

There wasn’t any other way to use all of these. Contradictory medicines, and all sorts, which even the most sickly- and Hitori should know-person could never need all at once. With the weight in his hand, he still didn’t feel real. He wasn’t anchored, he didn’t exist. He probably looked like shit. That probably helped the cashiers believe he needed whichever pills he picked at their particular store. Probably.

How would he know?

Before he knew it, he was back at the apartment. Where was his key? He didn’t have it. Fine. He knocked on the door.

“I’m not interest-” Kazuaki had started denying the supposed salesperson at the door before he’d even pulled it inward, but froze as soon as he saw. He stood there for a while, not speaking, not moving. Hitori stared. Stared just long enough to feel the weight of the bag in his hand, for a rush to well through his chest, and he crumpled forward, leaning most of his body weight on Kazuaki’s shoulder, blackening his shirt with the soot that still clung to him.

And he sobbed. For a while, it was nothing, only broken noises as he clutched at Kazuaki clumsily, one-handedly, the other still grasping the paper bag. He would not drop the paper bag.

“H-Hey, I thought, I was supposed to be the crybaby here…” Kazuaki fumbled for words. How did he comfort somebody? What was he supposed to say? Hitori’s usual encouragements might not work in reverse, and Kazuaki never really had to try and console anybody before. It didn’t help that he didn’t know the reason. With Hitori, there had to be a reason. Hitori didn’t cry for no reason. Not like him.

“I can’t have anything,” Hitori finally found the breath to put voice to his woes, and it was a good long while until he elaborated again, “The world just takes it away.”

“What happened?” Kazuaki questioned.

He didn’t get an answer.

Instead, Hitori pulled away, a wild appearance overtaking him as he locked eyes with Kazuaki, “You’re going to leave me too, aren’t you?”

“Huh?” Kazuaki didn’t deny it.

“You’ll leave me,” Hitori’s voice fell quieter as he leaned into Kazuaki again, using him for support, “You’re going to leave me. I have to beg you not to. Every week. I always have to beg you, to stay with me, to stay alive. Someday you’ll realize I’m not worth it. Someday you’ll leave me behind. Some way or another.”

Kazuaki could have said anything. He could have made a promise, however empty, that he wouldn’t dare do that. Could have said that Hitori would always be worth it. Any number of things. He didn’t, though. He didn’t say anything. Another three words.

Kazuaki said nothing.

“I thought so,” Hitori answered the silence, his voice cracking. He let go of Kazuaki, but didn’t stand up straight, staying slumped over as he brought his other hand up. The hand with the bag. He didn’t hesitate at all to ask, “So please. Don’t make me die alone.”

_Why don’t we die together? Wouldn’t that be romantic?_

Kazuaki said things like that before. He’d thought about it. More than thought about it, he’d honestly desired it. He did think it would be romantic. He thought that dying together was the most romantic thing in the world, even if he was wrong to think that way. Sometimes, before, Hitori seemed like he might even entertain the idea.

Why was it so frightening now that it was truly being offered?

Was it just because of how sudden it was? Was it because Kazuaki didn’t know what had Hitori feeling this way? He was scared.

Not scared enough, though.

“Okay,” Kazuaki said, and reached out, and wrapped his hand around Hitori’s feeling the paper bag for himself. That was it. That was the proof Hitori needed. All he needed to lose…

Any and all reservations.

Let’s lose control.

Let’s give up.

Let’s die together.

Three words, over and over.

Nageki was dead-

And soon, Hitori would be too.

Another three: Never Be Alone.

At this rate, he would have been. At this rate, there would have been nothing left for him. Everyone who ever cared about him, or wanted him, or needed him, one day all of them would have disappeared, just like Heartful House, just like Nageki. Kazuaki was unreliable. Fragile. Had anyone but him been the last one standing, to know Hitori Uzune, maybe there would have been some hope.

Kazuaki brought Hitori to the couch. They sat down, as if it was a normal day, it wasn’t. Hitori opened the bag on the coffee table, and careful, slow, precise, he measured from each bottle just what they would need. Even now, he didn’t want to be wasteful. Maybe after it spent some time in evidence lockup, one of the poor officers who found their bodies could find a use for the aspirin, or the sleeping aids, or any of the other ingredients in the cocktail Hitori devised. It was for Kazuaki’s benefit. The pills would go down easy. It wouldn’t hurt when they took effect. Hitori wouldn’t mind dying slowly. Painfully. Punishment for the wrongs he surely must have done to deserve a life like this.

But Kazuaki didn’t deserve it.

Hitori swept his pills into his palm, Kazuaki did the same.

Hitori dropped them into his mouth, not hesitating.

Kazuaki said, “Hey. Wait.”

And his pills were still in his hands. Only for a moment, though. He threw them across the room, and a cascade of taps sounded against the window.

Hitori said nothing.

“You…” Kazuaki took a deep breath and fought his clouding eyes, trying to sound, for all intents and purposes, normal. Not like he was crying, even though in this situation,that would have been fine, “You don’t really, want to die, right? You always told me, all about what we could do someday, where we could go and. I don’t wanna throw that out! I, can do it, you know. I can keep going with you. And not leave-”

“Ha,” Hitori vocalized, and it was nothing like a laugh. It was dull. Bitter. He dropped his weight to the side, lying on Kazuaki. Then he was perfectly still, down to his voice itself, “Fuck you.”

“Hitori?” Kazuaki questioned, staring down at him. He looked so small right now.

“Why would you do this to me?” Hitori asked, still without inflection, “Why would somebody who wants to die every single day, suddenly decide he honestly wants to live? Is it just to spite me?”

“No! I want you to live too!” Kazuaki protested, then tried to stand up, only to find that Hitori had a harsh grip on his arm, “Let me go! I need to call an ambulance! Hitori!”

“They’d never get here in time,” Hitori said, and as tone returned to his voice, he began to sound desperate, “If you have to do this to me, can’t you stay here?”

“You can’t assume something like that!” Kazuaki wrenched his arm free, “I have to try, you know! I don’t want to lose you either!”

With that, Kazuaki ran across the room, to the landline that he kept so that important phone calls wouldn’t interrupt his mobile gaming on his cell. Hitori tried to reach after him, but only managed to fall off the couch, landing on his side in the space between it and the coffee table.

If you don’t want to lose me, then why did you do this?

If you really loved me, then you couldn’t live without me.

If you couldn’t live without me you’d die with me.

You don’t care.

Three words.

You don’t care.

Kazuaki Nanaki didn’t want to touch the body.

By the time he’d finished telling the emergency line what was going on, he thought, Hitori was already dead. He seemed it. Kazuaki didn’t dare to check. Didn’t dare look for a pulse. He didn’t want his fears confirmed and he didn’t want to touch a corpse. Really, Hitori wasn’t dead yet at that point. But by the time that the first EMT walked in the door, he certainly was. There wasn’t a chance at resucitation. Kazuaki felt bad that he let them take the body away. Guilty, somehow. But Hitori would have chided him for letting a dead body stick around in his apartment and start smelling up the place, wouldn’t he?

Kazuaki spoke to the police and admitted that he was supposed to die too. With that, he was referred to a counselor. A counselor who actually provided help to him, and he finished college. He also learned that Nageki had died in a serious accident at St. Pigeonation’s, in which a large number of rooms caught fire.

That explained it. At least, in part. Kazuaki’s therapist said there was no way that a single event like that could take a smart young man from planning his future to committing suicide, but Kazuaki would probably never know what else was going on in Hitori’s head to prompt that. With guilt like this, Kazuaki wondered, why exactly… Didn’t he want to die anymore?

It still happened, it still hit him from time to time, of course it would. Even so, with an actual reason to be miserable, somehow, it kept him grounded in a way. It wasn’t just depression because his stupid idiot brain was broken. It was depression because his stupid idiot brain was broken and his boyfriend committed suicide.

His boyfriend.

There was a time when Kazuaki definitely wouldn’t have thought in terms of ‘his boyfriend’ and would have thought instead in terms of ‘the love of his life’. That was how it felt at first. The love of his life killed himself. Kazuaki’s counselor got him to stop thinking in such an absolute manner, though. Was he really? Could Hitori really have been Kazuaki’s soulmate if he did something like that? Was a relationship which could end in such a spectacularly awful fashion, not doomed even if the resolution hadn’t needed to be so drastic?

Kazuaki didn’t know how much of that he believed, sure. But Hitori was his dead boyfriend. That was it. It was a rotten thing to have a dead boyfriend, that much was for sure. But it didn’t mean nobody else would ever love Kazuaki. It didn’t mean that he couldn’t move on.

Eventually, Kazuaki graduated, if on an extended schooling plan. He found a job as an English teacher… at St. Pigeonation’s. He thought about denying the invitation, well aware it had only been extended to him as some sort of PR stunt. A job for the guy whose boyfriend committed suicide because of that accident! Even so, it was a good job. Kazuaki’s therapist said accepting the job might even help him to get closure. So he did it. He became a teacher.

And Kazuaki didn’t want to die anymore.

But somewhere out there.

Was somebody who still wanted him to.

\--

The King woke up completely alone.

He remembered dying. That was the only thing in his mind. He remembered lying on the ground with his ears ringing, feeling nothing but the carpet against his cheek, a distant voice on the phone, then fretting aloud, fretting, far away from him. Worthless. Empty fretting. Worried not for him at all, but for the fact that he was dying.

Dying alone.

He remembered when the light left him and there was nobody with him at all, and now he was even more alone. The King thought, why would it be this way? The King thought, lots of people died who The King loved. Why weren’t they here to greet him? Why couldn’t he see them again? Why was he alone?

He stood, and looked at his own hands. He didn’t recognize them very much. He shifted his shoulders, feeling the weight of a thick cloak, almost like a blanket. Soft feathers tickled his cheek. Ah, he was The King after all, and dressed like a king he was. He looked forward, and he wasn’t so alone. Not like there was anybody there. As if fate could be so kind. A small candle, though. As he approached, he could see better. Note that his outfit was in tyrian purples. Befitting of royalty. Why was he royalty?

The King reached for the candle. Reached and reached and held his finger over the flame and it didn’t hurt at all. He watched his finger blacken and he didn’t feel a thing. He reclaimed his hand. Watched it, as it returned to its natural coloring. There was the proof he’d truly died. As if he’d be in an endless void with naught but a candle, wearing His Highness’s attire under any circumstances but death.

Was this it? Was The King really alone, now and forever more?

[WHY DID YOU LET ME DIE ALONE]

He supposed that he was. He drew his cloak around himself and stared at the candle.

[DON’T LET THE FIRE CONSUME YOU, ALONE]

It flickered, as if it was taunting him. It was bright and vibrant. Fire was not alive, it was something which never had been alive, but it appeared alive. Especially to the dead.

How rude. Rude, rude, rude. It was very very rude for this candle to look like this when The King was so certainly dead and not at all vibrant and not at all warm or beautiful or anything that a candle, this candle, was. How dare it? How dare it treat The King this way? A silly little candle.

“The King thinks…” The King tried to speak, and found himself surprised that he could, “A measly candle is quite pointless. What use has the royal court for this?”

Maybe I don’t need to be useful, the candle seemed to reply. Maybe I’m just here to keep you company.

“The King doesn’t want a candle as company,” The King said, “The King wants his family.”

What family? The candle seemed to condescend.

“The King’s family!” The King insisted, earnestly, “The King has a family! The King needs them! The King…”

The King can’t remember their names, can he?

“The King knows he had a family!” The King raised his hands to his head, digging his fingernails into his scalp as if it would help him to remember, “Lots and lots of brothers and sisters! There are princes and princesses!”

Are there now?

“Yes!” The King shrieked, dropping to his knees, “Princes and Princesses in The King’s family! And there’s one more! Somebody loved The King?”

If you’re alone now, did he really love you?

“The King… Ah,” The King froze, and lowered his hands, cupping the candle’s flame between them now, “The King loved somebody. Nobody loved The King. The King is all alone. The King has always been alone, even when there were others. Nobody loved The King.”

Now you’re getting it.

“The King thinks,” The King took a deep breath, “Maybe a candle is okay for company. A candle cannot leave The King alone.”

As if to prove it could, the candle went out.

The King hardly had the chance to start screaming before it came back, though. The candle couldn’t stand to let The King be so miserable for long.

Together, The King and his candle could make a kingdom.

A very lonely kingdom indeed.

Poor King, Poor King.

\--

When Nageki realized that Kazuaki couldn’t see him, he was confused. As a ghost, of course, he knew what it took for somebody to witness his presence. A pure heart. As much as he and Kazuaki never got along, there was one thing that he thought he could count on. Kazuaki led a charmed life, but for his brain chemicals. He’d never witnessed or committed something so absolutely awful that it would corrupt his heart, right?

That was what Nageki thought at first.

He came to understand, though. Thanks to Hiyoko. Hiyoko could see him, and they’d become very close. When he voiced his confusion, she said that she’d use her amazing powers of seduction, (‘yeah, like the ones you used on me?’) to find out. Nageki should never have mentioned it to her, though. Hiyoko’s powers of seduction led to Kazuaki apologizing to her, saying in no uncertain terms that he didn’t like girls and he didn’t like students, but even if he did, he couldn’t date her. He wasn’t ready just yet. Not after his last boyfriend…

Died.

Nageki knew what that meant. His disapproval of Kazuaki wasn’t even that he didn’t like the idea of his big brother dating, though that could be a small part of it. He honestly thought that Kazuaki was a bad influence, since he’d been deep in the throes of a depressive episode and had, even when Nageki had been in earshot, suggested with questionable sincerity the possibility of a suicide pact. Still, Nageki didn’t think, even when he’d died…

That Hitori would die and Kazuaki would still be here. Was. Was Hitori really suffering, right under Nageki’s nose, like that? He knew that he was younger than Hitori, but he’d always considered himself mature for his age, and he thought that he’d notice that kind of pain in somebody, even now. Or, maybe it was especially now.

Maybe he really couldn’t tell back then.

All of this remained in his heart, though. Nageki wouldn’t tell Hiyoko that she’d just uncovered information that his older brother, the supposed last living member of Heartful House, had killed himself. She didn’t need to know that. He just thanked her for sating his curiosity, then they went back to the bookshelves to decide on what they’d read together next. It was a good pasttime. Nageki liked to read when he was alive, sure, but he counted himself quite lucky that as a ghost he had access to a collection, limited though it may be, of books. Reading them with Hiyoko made them last longer, and it was more enjoyable too.

It would be three more months before Nageki and Hiyoko picked up the book which would trigger in them and the students of a certain English class a shared dream.

And a visit to a cursed land.

**Author's Note:**

> whole-ass holistar adventure coming up next folks


End file.
